


Coordination and Balance

by Robin_Fai



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Office, Clumsiness, Dyspraxia, First Kiss, Flirting, Fluff, Gen, Getting Lost, I will hear no criticism of this fact, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Merlin is dyspraxic (Merlin), mild injuries mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:02:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26882611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robin_Fai/pseuds/Robin_Fai
Summary: Merlin is Arthur's personal assistant. He's the best assistant Arthur's ever had (not that he'd ever admit that.) It's just a shame that he's so clumsy.-Written for dyspraxia awareness week-
Relationships: Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 339





	Coordination and Balance

**Author's Note:**

> Hello folks.   
> I've had this headcanon for ages that Merlin is dyspraxic. One look at how he is in the show is enough to confim it for me. I firmly believe his clumsiness is no act. He is both the greatest sorcerer who ever lived, and a man born with a developmental coordination disorder. I had already written a couple of snippets along those lines and then realised it was dyspraxia awareness week so decided to pull them together into a cute little office AU.   
> I hope you enjoy!   
> (And if you also have dyspraxia - hello! *waves bruised hand*)

“Seriously, Merlin! Can you not even get through _one day_ without destroying something?!” 

Merlin ducked his head to hide his embarrassment. The steady drip of coffee from Arthur’s desk punctuated the silence. 

“I’m sorry, Mr Pendragon. I was just trying to-”

“You are aware that keyboards generally do not require watering?”

“I-”

Arthur picked up the soaked item with just the tips of his fingers, as though it were toxic, then turned and pressed it into Merlin’s chest. 

“Get me a replacement. Quickly.”

Merlin took the keyboard and fled the office. He could feel the hot, sticky, liquid soaking into his shirt. Once he was out of sight of Arthur’s office he paused and closed his eyes and breathed out steadily through his nose to try and remain calm. There was coffee imprinted in a grid pattern across his chest. That was going to stain. 

He hadn’t got any other good shirts left. Several had noticeable stains from spilling tea or coffee over himself, and two of them had tears from getting caught on improbable items of furniture. He was going to have to make an emergency trip to the shop on his way home and, knowing Arthur, he wasn’t likely to get out of the office until late so the all night supermarket was probably going to be his only option. Any shirt he could buy there would probably look cheap, but on the plus side it would be cheap. On the pittance of a salary he received he couldn’t afford to be replacing suits at his current rate.

\-----

From the swearing in the office Merlin was guessing that Arthur had just found his dry cleaning. Merlin was pretty sure arranging such matters had not been on the original job description but he was on his ‘final warning’ again so he had just sighed and taken the suit to the cleaners.

All had been going well – there wasn’t much that could go wrong with dry cleaning after all – until he had got the suit back to the office and opened the bag to check the contents. Somehow (and he really wasn’t sure how) he had managed to cut himself on the zip. It was a ridiculous injury, but then most of his injuries were. The trouble was that he hadn’t noticed the cut until he shifted the jacket to check the press of the shirt - and had promptly gotten a bloody thumb print right where he imagined Arthur’s nipple would be.

He had stared at the offending mark for over a minute, horrified. There was no way to fix his error before the awards event that evening so he had zipped the cover back up in a hurry and hoped the dry cleaners would get the blame. 

A fine plan. 

Or it was until he was caught red handed. Or, more precisely, until he managed to get distracted, forget to bandage his thumb, and left more bloody thumb prints on an important document. He had hidden it among a set of other, less urgent, files but he knew Arthur would need it before the end of the day.

Now he was hiding in the stationery cupboard and trying not to panic about the increasingly enraged monologue that was coming from the direction of Arthur’s office. Silence eventually descended but was swiftly cut short by a yell.

“MERLIN!”

Arthur had found the document then. 

Merlin looked around the small cupboard and considered if it might be possible to remain hidden there for the two hours until Arthur had to leave for the event. He took a step back… and knocked over an entire set of shelves. Pens, highlighters, and staples rained down on his head. From the main office the sound of heavy footsteps approached. The door to the cupboard was wrenched open revealing a red faced Arthur Pendragon.

“Oh, hello.” Merlin said casually and fixed an excessively wide smile upon his face. “I was just doing a stock take…”

Arthur held up the document Merlin had left his mark upon. The thumbprint was almost as red as Arthur’s face was currently.

\-----

“Merlin?”

Merlin ignored Arthur. Perhaps if he just carried on with his filing Arthur wouldn’t ask the obvious question. One of the piles of files he was working from collapsed, cascading loose paper across the floor.

“ _Mer_ lin!”

No such luck.

“Yes, _Ar_ thur? How may I help you _m’lord_?” He gave an exaggerated bow to punctuate his sarcasm. He knew it was a terrible choice of ways to deflect attention but it was effective.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Merlin. Pick those papers up and get me the Lancelot project file. We’ve got a meeting in ten minutes and I’m going to need you to make notes.” Arthur waved his hand regally and turned to leave.

Merlin breathed a sigh of relief and began sweeping the paperwork up together on the floor. He had got away with it this time.

Arthur paused in the doorway and turned back. “Oh, and Merlin?”

Maybe not.

“Mmm?” He hummed, trying to avoid eye contact.

“Why is there marker pen on your forehead?”

\-----

“You’re late. Again.”

Merlin went to check his watch, only to find he had forgotten to put it on in his hurry that morning.

“Ah, sorry! I’ll stay late to make up the time.” 

_Although I’ve probably worked over a month’s worth of unpaid overtime with all the late hours you make me do._

He managed to think it only and not say it out loud this time.

“Have you got the Leon account finalised?” Arthur demanded.

“The Leon account?” Merlin tried to recall what he was supposed to be doing with that particular account and where the file was.

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Yes, Merlin, the Leon account.”

“The one we need for the conference tomorrow?” 

“The one we need for the conference _this afternoon_.”

Arthur looked worried and Merlin felt his stomach sink. “This afternoon?”

“Is there an echo in here? Yes. The Leon account. The one you were supposed to be organising and typing up ready for the conference that we are attending in-” Arthur looked at his blatantly expensive watch, “in two hours!”

“Ah. About that...”

\-----

Of course Arthur had to go and notice he was limping. The man was completely blind to the state of his assistant until there was some embarrassing cause to his ailment.

“Merlin, are you planning on answering my question any time soon? Why are you limping?”

“Ah, you see, that’s a long story.” Merlin set about making coffee and hoped Arthur would drop the subject.

“Yeee-s…?” Arthur drew out the word and crossed his arms. Merlin wished he wouldn’t do that. It showed off his figure beautifully and it really was quite distracting.

“We’ve probably not got time for-”

“Stop being evasive and just answer me.”

“I fell.” Merlin jabbed at the buttons on the coffee machine and it hissed into life.

“Well, that wasn’t a long story now was it. Care to elaborate? _How_ did you fall?”

“It isn’t really… I just…” Merlin stuttered, trying to come up with a good lie. Arthur stared at him, unyielding. Merlin sighed and resigned himself to telling the truth. “You know Mordred, in IT?”

“With you as my assistant how could I not be personally acquainted with each and every member of that long suffering department?”

“Oh, haha.” Merlin glared at him. “So we were supposed to be going on a date.”

Arthur raised his eyebrows at that. “Oh really?”

“Yes. Got a problem with that?”

Arthur laughed and held up his hands. “No, no problem. Just didn’t think he’d be your type.”

Merlin ignored him and pressed on with his story. “I went to their department to pick him up, but he wasn’t there. So then I went to marketing as I knew he had a project he was assisting with there, but Gwen hadn’t seen him. Luckily, Elyan was passing through and he had seen him. Turns out we’d got our wires crossed. Mordred had the afternoon off so I was supposed to meet him at-”

Arthur cut off his rambling. “Get to the point, Merlin.” 

Merlin lightly clenched his fists by his sides and fixed his gaze on the banner on the back wall of the office. 

“I was in a hurry so I tripped over my own foot and fell up the stairs of the restaurant.”

Arthur looked confused. “Don’t you mean ‘fell _down_ ’ the steps?”

“No.”

“How does one fall UP stairs.”

“Well, you’ve got to really practice. Try doing it once a week at least.”

The machine finished its hissing and spouted hot coffee into their mugs. Merlin turned to get them, taking extra care not to spill the boiling liquid anywhere.

“Did you get to your date in the end?” Arthur asked as he took one of the mugs.

“Nah. I’d got the time wrong too. He thought we were meeting for lunch. Wasn’t even there. Don’t think we’ll be trying again after that fiasco.”

Arthur looked awkward. “Oh. Sorry.”

Merlin shrugged. “No big loss. He’s not really my type anyway.”

“Oh? What is your type then?”

“Hmm…” Merlin pretended to consider. “Tall, blonde, handsome, bit of a prat.” He stirred some sugar into his coffee and blew on it to cool it a little. He smiled mischievously. “So, you basically.”

Arthur’s face seemed to contort as it flew through several emotions too quick to follow.

“I… Um…” Arthur was going a shade of red that would’ve blended perfectly with the banner behind and his mouth kept opening and closing like a fish out of water.

“I was joking you clotpole!” Merlin said with a laugh. 

He wasn’t joking of course, but the best way to disguise the truth was often in making it appear to be a lie.

Arthur regained some composure. “Clotpole?! What century were you born in?”

“Mmm… somewhere around the sixth century. You’re King Arthur reincarnated, and I’m your court magician - who is immortal obviously – except you don’t know about my magic because its illegal so I get a job as your servant instead.”

Arthur laughed at that. “Alright, and how do you come to be my servant?”

“I challenge you to a duel of course!” Merlin set aside his coffee and swiped up a ruler from the desk, brandishing it like a sword.

“I feel like several of the pages of your script got stuck together there. Some random peasant just wanders up and challenges the _King_ to a duel?”

“Well obviously you’re just the Prince at that point.”

“Exactly how much of this little fantasy have you thought out, Merlin?”

Merlin knew he would blush if the attention stayed on him too long. He had mapped out far beyond an acceptable amount of that particular daydream. To distract attention, he playfully swatted Arthur with the plastic ruler.

“Come on! Fight back! Or are you scared you’ll lose to a peasant?”

Arthur growled and put his own coffee mug aside before reaching back and retrieving a long metal ruler from under some files. 

“Hey! That’s not fair!” Merlin complained.

They fenced back and forth for a few seconds, both laughing, and Merlin wondered if he had ever been so happy. But then the inevitable happened and he stumbled over something. They both came crashing down in a muddle of limbs, Merlin landing on top of Arthur. Merlin groaned and rolled away and onto his back. It ought to have been kind of sexy to get so tangled up with Arthur’s body, but in reality it just hurt. He turned his head and found Arthur’s face barely ten centimetres from his own. His breath caught in his throat. _Those eyes..._

Arthur looked almost as distracted for a moment, but then he moved his arm and winced in pain.

“Ow!” Arthur lifted his arm and cradled it to his chest. “If you’ve broken my arm, I swear you’re going in the stocks.”

\-----

“I’m going to need you to drive.”

“What?”

Arthur lifted his bandaged wrist and presented it to Merlin as though it were a mortal wound and not a simple strain.

“I…” Merlin felt his face colour.

Arthur threw the car keys to him. Obviously he failed to catch them, but at least they simply fell to the ground and he didn’t accidentally propel them down a drain as he had the last time some prat had thrown keys at him in the street. Merlin bent to pick them up and tried to come up with an excuse not to drive.

“I’m not… I’m not that great at driving.” He admitted. 

Arthur frowned and looked slightly nervous. “You have got a driving licence though? You did pass your test?”

“Yes.” _On his sixth attempt._

“Well, you can’t be that bad then.” Arthur climbed into the passenger seat, leaving Merlin on the street. “Come on, _Mer_ lin! We’re going to be late at this rate.”

With Merlin driving they definitely were going to be late, but he didn’t have time to explain so he simply went with the easiest option of getting into the driver’s seat and awaiting the inevitable.

\-----

The inevitable arrived an hour later.

“Merlin.”

“Yes, Arthur.” Merlin’s voice was high pitched with the strain of driving around in what was probably circles.

“Where are we?”

“Well… er…” Merlin looked around desperately for some kind of signpost to help him answer that question but all he could see were fields and sheep. “We seem to be… er…”

“Where was the conference to be held?” Arthur was twisted towards him in the passenger seat, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Albion.” 

“And where did we set out from?”

“Camelot.”

“And is the main road between those two places not direct, obvious, and significantly less potholed and grassy than this one?”

Merlin huffed in annoyance. “I told you-”

“Merlin, there is having a poor sense of direction, and then there is ending up lost on a twenty mile journey!”

“It isn’t that easy for me!” 

“We had the sat nav on.”

“Well then blame it on the sat nav. It isn’t my fault the damn thing died just after I missed the turning. It isn’t my fault if technology failed us!” Merlin snapped.

“You couldn’t even follow the most basic of directions it gave when it was working - like joining the motorway rather than turning off into some random farmer’s yard. Turn right here.”

Merlin turned right. Or at least he thought he did. He was too stressed by that point to pause and check with his hands.

“Merlin.”

“What now?”

“Why did you go left?” 

“I went right. I know I went-” Merlin flicked his hands open quickly to double check and noted which formed the ‘L’ shape. He swore. He’d gone left.

“You can’t even tell your left from your right?”

Arthur looked more patronising than irate by this point and it was enough to tip Merlin over the edge. He abruptly pulled over into a muddy gateway and turned off the engine.

“Arthur, what part of ‘I am dyspraxic’ did you not understand the first time I told you?” He asked through gritted teeth.

“What has a spelling issue got to do with this?”

“That’s dyslexia, not dyspraxia you dollop head. Dyspraxia is a developmental coordination disorder.”

“I…” Arthur had the decency to look a little ashamed. “A what?”

“Coordination disorder. I have problems with coordination.” Merlin did not want to be having this conversation in some random gateway in the countryside. 

They sat in silence for a minute. “Lots of people are a bit clumsy,” Arthur eventually muttered.

“A bit… Arthur! This is not just being a ‘bit clumsy’! I can’t just fix this. My brain is wired differently. If I try harder I can avoid some of it but there’s so much to focus on something always slips. Last week I opened a cupboard into the middle of my forehead. I can’t throw or catch. I am perpetually walking into things and falling over my own feet. I drop, spill, or break something at least once a week. I can’t judge distances, keep track of time, read a bus timetable, or grip things with an appropriate amount of pressure. My handwriting is worthy of a career as a doctor. I can’t ride a bike, I often fall over, and I have zero, and I mean ZERO sense of direction!”

Merlin hadn’t realised he was shouting until he took in Arthur’s expression. He deflated a little at the regret on his face. Merlin turned back to the front of the car and picked at his nails.

“Sorry. I just get so tired. I have to be thinking about it all the time and no one can even see what’s wrong or how hard I’m trying… And it hurts to always get mocked for things I can’t help. I am and always will be ‘clumsy’. I don’t mind laughing about it most of the time, but there’s a difference between laughing with a friend about a silly thing that happened, and getting mocked for it - all while fearing you’re going to lose your job for ruining yet another keyboard, or suit, or file...” 

He risked a glance at Arthur. The poor man looked stunned. Despite being his boss, Merlin was often sarcastic and disrespectful of Arthur, he had even called him out on what he considered to be poor business decisions in the past, but he was fairly certain he had never revealed so much about himself or his feelings before. He was not sure he’d ever been this honest with anyone about how it felt to be different and to have people either dismiss it or punish him. He ran a shaking hand through his hair. He really was tired.

Arthur’s mouth opened and closed several times before he blurted out, “I’m gay.”

Merlin stared at him, utterly baffled by the non-sequitur.

“My father is… he’s not very accepting of… well, anyone really. I know it isn’t the same at all but I feel like maybe I understand just a bit because I always feel like I have to put on this act. I can’t change who I am and I shouldn’t be made to feel like I have to, but Dad would… I don’t know what he’d do exactly but it would be bad. I don’t want to hide any more but I’ve been doing it so long it’s automatic now. I go on dates with women. I’ve even been engaged twice. It’s exhausting having to monitor your each and every action. So, yeah, not the same… but I wanted to explain why I sort of get it.” 

It was definitely Merlin’s turn to be shocked now. He had thought he had a good read on Arthur, but he would never have picked him as being gay. How was he ever going to get _any_ work done now that tempting opportunity had presented itself to him? 

“Wow. It really is sharing hours here on the road to nowhere.” Merlin laughed, finally relaxing after the tension and adrenaline of the last few minutes. His stomach grumbled and Arthur smiled. 

“We’d better get to that conference. Or back to the office.” Arthur said, and if his smile was just that bit warmer, or if he was only noticing it now he knew, Merlin couldn’t say.

Merlin looked at the sheep that had gathered at the gate as a woollen audience to their drama then back to the road. 

“Ah.”

“You haven’t got a clue where we are or how to get us back, have you?” Arthur’s voice was amused and teasing, but with none of the anger from before.

“Not the faintest. Your highness will just have to hope that we find some form of civilisation before I starve to death.”

Arthur sighed, closed his eyes, and tilted his head back to rest upon the expensive leather seat. It exposed the strong curve of his neck. He was still smiling and it made Merlin’s heart ache with how beautiful it was. 

“Is there anywhere you can navigate your way to where I can find something to fill you up, do you think?” Arthur asked.

Merlin paused, then smirked as he decided to take a risk. 

“I can think of one place.”

“Great. Don’t worry about work now. Let’s just get somewhere for some-”

Arthur’s words were abruptly cut short as Merlin leaned over and kissed him. Arthur hesitated for only a moment before responding, running his hands through Merlin’s hair and deepening the kiss. After a minute they broke apart and leaned back in their respective seats.

“I… that was…” Arthur broke into a silly grin, “excellent. That was excellent. Do you know how long I’ve been wanting to kiss you?”

Merlin reached across and took Arthur’s hand in his. “You mean to tell me we’ve been wasting our time compiling reports and going to meetings when we could have been doing that instead?”

Arthur laughed. “Not that I’m complaining or anything, but what has this got to do with getting you food?”

“You never said anything about food.”

“What? Of course I did. I asked if you could find your way to something to- OH!” 

Merlin could only laugh and the blush that crept across Arthur’s face. He was all reds and golds and glittering blues - just like the prince of his dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> If you have any questions about dyspraxia - I'm not an expert beyond my own experiences but always happy to talk about it so feel free to drop me a comment or a message over on Tumblr (I'm robinfai on there).


End file.
